RECKLESS REBIRTH

METANOIA

The change of mind arrives quickly, yet it lasts. Sudden, like the piercing of an arrow. This is the moment the old self can no longer survive intact. Metanoia marks a shift not only in opinion, but in perception as well. It appears when our awareness of love, life, and ourselves has collapsed, and the mind enters a state beyond what it once knew. From here, we move forward; all roads behind us close – and return is no longer tenable.

I would like to ask, what forms of yourself have you abandoned?Is Metanoia a rupture, or a refinement? If rebirth could be painted, what would be revealed?

It has been quite some time since the previous issue, so I see this as a revival. What better way to celebrate that revival than with a focus on the idea of Metanoia — a transformation of the heart and mind? From the Greek meta — beyond, after — and nous — mind. Often, it arrives through pain, disillusionment, or intimacy — when a belief you relied on breaks and, in breaking, teaches you something irreversible. Metanoia also keeps company with truth, sometimes in collaboration and other times in contrast. It lives in the space between collapse and clarity.

Our Naïve Writers

ALEXA LIM HAAS

LYNSLEE MERCARDO

ELIZA WILSON

L.K. ODE

ANDREAS TOBIAS

JAELEN SALVATORE

KAREN CANTORS

AMBERLEY GRIDLEY

FRANCIS YU

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ

KATE MORGAN

TIGER BLOOD

Written by L.K. Ode

A Secret Ingredient to the Age of 25

Written by Nogana DeCastro

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Written by Karen Cantor

Covid-19 arrived in New York four years into my nursing career and exactly one month into my role as a full-fledged ICU nurse. At the time, I had a rock-solid five-year plan: survive five years at the only hospital I had ever worked at, secure my retirement benefits, and then apply to CRNA school. It was the kind of plan that sounded responsible—impressive, even—coming from your eldest daughter. 

But somewhere between intubations, stimulus checks, and the 7pm applause, I had a change of heart. Because here’s the thing about five-year plans: they assume you’ll be the same person in five years. So, what happens when you’re not? 

The strange thing about being an ICU nurse during a global pandemic is that the job eventually stopped feeling impossible. Somewhere between the third surge and the thousandth ventilator alarm, the chaos became routine. What once felt terrifying slowly became muscle memory. I could walk into a crashing room and know exactly what to do before anyone finished shouting the orders. 

And that was its own kind of problem. 

Because once the job got easier, there was nothing left to distract me from the rest of my life. 

The truth is, I’m afraid to go back to school—not because I don’t think I could do it, but because I remember exactly what it took the first time. I don’t know how to be a student without losing myself in the process. Or my relationships. Or the fragile little ecosystem of peace I’ve built as an adult. 

College, if I’m being honest, wasn’t exactly my golden era. Sure, I left with a bachelor’s degree and a few passport stamps, but not much else. No tight-knit friend group planning each other’s weddings. No lifelong best friend. My grades were decent, but nothing that made my parents’ faces light up across the dinner table. 

My romantic life? Let’s just say traumatic might be the polite word. 

And at my Catholic commuter school’s version of homecoming, I performed in an all-girl dance troupe called the Dolphin Dolls—often in booty shorts or fishnet tights. Yes, these were family events. And yes, somehow that made it worse. 

Most nights I worked and slept in the library. I remember the surprise on people’s faces when I finally showed up to a party—and the quiet shame that followed when I realized they hadn’t expected me to come at all. After enough declined invitations, the hangout requests simply stopped.

And yet, if given a do-over, I probably would have involved myself socially even less. I had blinders on, secured by a strong desire for parental praise and an even stronger fear of failure. 

Now, ten years into my career, I found myself strangely inspired by a TikTok video of a girl celebrating her un-accomplishments with a cigarette cake. It felt oddly appropriate. 

Because somewhere along the way, my perfectly reasonable life plan had quietly collapsed. 

The road had once been clear. The timeline was reasonable. The itinerary was strict. The goalposts had never moved. But a couple of failed standardized exams, a phobia of driving, a global pandemic, and one broken engagement later, the entire structure had no leg to stand on. 

Which raised an uncomfortable question: who the hell was I? 

By the time my frontal lobe finally finished developing, the entire world had shut down. And suddenly my instinct-driven way of living—react first, think later—was painfully obvious. I realized I had no tools in the toolbox. Just adrenaline and determination. 

Meanwhile, Instagram kept serving me a parade of weddings, baby showers, new houses, and shiny cars. And I couldn’t help but wonder: was everyone else moving forward while I was standing still? 

By twenty-eight, I felt completely lost. Unbroken behavioral cycles turned into emotional spirals that began manifesting elsewhere: on my skin, in my joints, across my shoulders, even in my bloodwork. 

With the help of my therapist, a little Welly-B, and a stimulant prescription, I decided to give the plan another shot. I enrolled in an online biochemistry prerequisite course and took my flashcards to a coffee shop like some kind of academic redemption tour. 

But somewhere between the flashcards and the oat-milk latte, it hit me. 

No amount of romanticizing could make studying enjoyable again. 

Was it always this hard? Or had I simply outgrown the version of myself who believed suffering was proof you were doing something right? 

I got through every year of life that was covered by my father’s insurance plan in the way he would have endorsed it: sheer willpower, discipline, sacrifice—and absolutely zero medication.

My CRNA application sat half-finished on a shelf collecting dust. Deadlines passed year by year. At first, I thought this meant I had lost my ambition. 

But what really happened was much stranger. 

For the first time, I started considering… me. 

I had spent my entire adult life proving that I could endure hard things—nursing school, ICU shifts, a global pandemic—only to discover that the skill I had mastered was endurance itself. 

The irony was that by the time the ICU finally became manageable—by the time I could walk into work without my heart rate skyrocketing—I had also developed enough self-awareness to realize I didn’t want a life built entirely around surviving difficult things. 

And that realization arrived, oddly enough, after running 26.2 miles through New York City. At some point during the marathon, I remember thinking: when was the last time I genuinely enjoyed the process of something? 

What if my life wasn’t designed around proving something to someone else? What if it was designed around what I actually liked every step along the way? 

I realized I couldn’t go back to a grind I had to dissociate from just to survive. My dream job had suddenly become my nightmare job and, in the end, just a job. 

Who was I outside of a school or a hospital? 

After years of mastering survival mode, I didn’t want another mountain to climb. I wanted the beach. 

Because if I’m being brutally honest, I never had a good answer for the application essay question: Why do you want to become a CRNA? 

The real answer was simple. My mom strongly suggested it. And it pays well enough to tolerate being blamed by a surgeon for every small inconvenience in the operating room. 

The longer it took me to approach the application, the less compelling it sounded—to go into debt and sacrifice three more years of my life, and my introverted social life, to prove something I wasn’t even sure I wanted.

The past version of me would have written a beautiful lie. I would have stretched and embellished my truth until it looked impressive enough. 

But the version of me standing here now can’t do that anymore. 

Because the truth is, I can barely focus on something I don’t care about for more than twenty minutes. And yet I can surf for four hours straight, risking sunburn and drowning. I can knit an entire sweater in one sitting. 

And despite these hyper-independent hobbies, I can’t imagine spending any less time with a man I met after all the drama—who only knows the past version of me in the past tense. 

Which makes me wonder. 

In a city obsessed with ambition, prestige, and the next big credential… Is choosing the life you actually enjoy the boldest career move of all?

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Written by Andreas Tobias

Dear Daniel

Written by Daniel Omori

In the spirit of naïveté, let me recall at some point you may think cougars are appealing, but let me tell you, they are not. I still remember the complement of your cheekbones offset by an unwanted tongue molestation of said cheeks while your friends watched in amusement. At that moment you realized, you do not want this. These fantasies of the future sometimes in your head are in reality, not the dreams you had in mind. 

I am writing to the 25-year-old version of myself as I reflect back on 7 years that have brought me to 32. You love your friends and family and value traveling to see them. You learn to embrace adventure and your nerdy passions. This takes us to Norway, Japan, multiple music festivals – we get to see our love, Taylor Swift, at one of them – climbing trips, and Comic-Con among many other things. It can be said, we are enjoying the moment. Our friends are all in the same place as you trying to navigate their careers so everyone is available, despite not having much money. These were fun times.

Career-wise we are working in a lab as a scientist, but realize the idea of life in a lab is not bringing you joy. Our social life is great, but our career as a scientist doesn’t seem so bright. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we learn about design, go back to school, and find our way into a new career as UX/UI designer that even leads us to our dream city of New York. We are ecstatic and successful in our future endeavors. We nostalgically think back to our childhood of drawing pokemon with our cousins, thinking maybe I was always meant to follow this path. Speaking of, we get much closer with our cousins again who are our closest friends after years of separation from college, travel, and jobs while our other friends are settling down deeper into their own lives with careers and family. There is an ironic circular shift now where our career is fulfilling, but our social life has shrunk. I actually feel like I'm trying to find that 25-year-old version of us again that could socialize so easily. After becoming too comfortable in isolation for 2 years during the pandemic, I hope getting back out there is like riding a bike and we can surround ourselves with people that help bring out that side of us again. Fingers crossed.

So as I look back on these 7 years, I am glad we pursued our new passions and hope others around us do so as well with much luck and success. We all will work past our imposter syndrome and try to remember the little successes that brought us here. Nothing happened overnight as they always say. Meet people and help others because that networking helped get you here and your work helped keep you there. It's easy to fall into cynicism, don’t do that either. Stay positive, we got this.

Best of luck,

Daniel   

Pleading the (Twenty) Fifth

Written by Maurice Levardo